01/25/2010

Raymond Tallis has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't like the recent trend towards research at the cross-roads of neuroscience and the humanities. In a series of sensational editorials, he has derided what he uncharitably refers to as "neuro-trash" and "neuro-mythology." I, for one, think that his arguments tend to shed far more heat than light. Minimally, Tallis' frequently commits what I have called the fallacy of composition when it comes to the field of neurolaw. As such, I plan to post a few responses in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, I thought I would provide readers with links to some of the things he has written about the relationship between neuroscience and the humanities in the past few years.

In summary, such are the limitations of our understanding of the brain,
attempting to apply the findings of neuroscience to social policy would
be premature, even if this were not wrong in principle. But it is wrong
in principle. The fabric of the human world, of the public space that
is the arena of our lives, is woven out of explicit shared attention
that has been infinitely elaborated in a way that has little to do with
what goes on in the darkness of the individual skull, though you
require a brain in working order in order to be part of it. If you come
across a new discipline with the prefix “neuro” and it is not to do
with the nervous system itself, switch on your bullshit detector. If it
has society in its sights, reach for your gun. Bring on the
neurosceptics.

Meanwhile, the neuromitigation of blame has to be treated with suspicion
except in those instances where there is unambiguous evidence of grossly
abnormal brain function or abnormal mental function due to clearcut illness
that may have its origin in brain disease. Our knowledge of the relationship
between brain and consciousness, brain and self, and brain and agency is so
weak and so conceptually confused that the appeal to neuroscience in the law
courts, the police station or anywhere else is premature and usually
inappropriate. And, I would suggest, it will remain both premature and
inappropriate. Neurolaw is just another branch of neuromythology.

Our failure to explain consciousness in terms of neural activity inside
the brain inside the skull is not due to technical limitations which
can be overcome. It is due to the self-contradictory nature of the
task, of which the failure to explain "aboutness", the unity and
multiplicity of our awareness, the explicit presence of the past, the
initiation of actions, the construction of self are just symptoms. We
cannot explain "appearings" using an objective approach that has set
aside appearings as unreal and which seeks a reality in mass/energy
that neither appears in itself nor has the means to make other items
appear. The brain, seen as a physical object, no more has a world of
things appearing to it than does any other physical object.

(*) This piece is not specifically about neurolaw, but it is based on assumptions that inform Tallis' so-called neuro-skepticism.

It appears both Tallis' strategy and his rhetoric are catching on, as evidenced by this recent piece by Denyse O'Leary over at Mertcator.net:

I'd like to propose a radical idea. Why don't the neuroscientists and
progressive humanists stop hyperventilating and chill out for a while.
Let them reflect on the fact that a hundred years ago phrenology,
the "science" of analysing behaviour by putting a tape measure around a
skull, was all the rage. Until they can account for the difference
between the mind and the brain, their research might not be worth a
hill of beans. In fact, it might just be, in the words of Raymond
Tallis, neo-phrenology.

09/12/2009

There is an interesting documentary being filmed by Doug Wolens entitled The Singularity. The movie will contain interviews with folks ranging from neuroscientist Christoph Koch and philosopher David Chalmers to inventor Ray Kurzweil and CIA Director Leon Panetta. Needless to say, it ought to be an interesting film to watch. In the event that you wanted a better idea of what people who talk about "The Singularity" have in mind, you should hop over to The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. For now, here is an excerpt from their attempt to define the concept:

The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human
intelligence. There are several technologies that are often mentioned
as heading in this direction. The most commonly mentioned is probably
Artificial Intelligence, but there are others: direct brain-computer
interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering,
ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer
emulation. Some of these technologies seem likely to arrive much
earlier than the others, but there are nonetheless several independent
technologies all heading in the direction of the Singularity – several
different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of
sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human
intelligence.

If you would like to see their full description of The Singularity, see here. Regardless of if and when you think we will ever create machines that (or who?!) are more intelligent than humans, it is clear that if it we were to do so, it would create a wide variety of moral and legal problems at the crossroads of neuroscience and artificial intelligence!

07/26/2009

Here are two interesting videos by our own Mike Gazzaniga. The first (see here) is a recent interview with folks from the NSF--which addresses the various ways neuroscience could impact the law. The second (see here) is a bloggingheads.tv discussion between Gazzaniga and Carl Zimmer. Happy viewing!

07/24/2009

Over at WIRED, there are two interesting recent stories. The first is about the possibility of "brain hacking"--i.e., the malicious misappropriation of neural implants. The second is about recent research at the University of Wisconsin involving "twitter telepathy"--i.e., using EEG to send a "tweet" telepathically rather than inputting it manually with a keyboard!

I thought I would post a few links to some interesting videos I have stumbled upon during the past couple of weeks--some of which are more obviously related to neuroscience, philosophy, and the law than others! If you have your own interesting video links to share, please let us know in the comment thread: